


Star-crossed Coworkers

by caacrinolaas



Series: Descending Upward [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Quantum Abyss (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 16:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19976932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caacrinolaas/pseuds/caacrinolaas
Summary: Flashed far into the future, Keith encounters his enemies.





	Star-crossed Coworkers

_A deep rumble echoed all around them, shaking the core of spacetime itself. It was all-too familiar._

_"Oh, great."_

_"It's a large one, get under cover!"_

_The idea of 'cover' right now, of course, was a flimsy bush with scraggly leaves and small thorns. Not good for an explosion, or even this, but there was no time. Ironic, given how in this place, time is not and never will be linear._

_The expanse of white grew larger and larger, seemingly slow but blindingly fast in the endless expanse of nothing and everything._

_With the light, the world disappeared again._

...

...

...... 

_"Hey, are you awake? Come on, small guy..."_

_A faint rattle, followed by an frustrated growl._

_"Oh, come on. This is the third time this has happened now. Am I gonna have to carry you like some kind of damsel every time? **Wake up!** "_

Keith's eyes snapped open at the rough and gravely voice, awareness flooding into him as he looked down to see his old red jacket. Looking around in the vast expanse of white, his eyes fell on a pocket of color. Jumping to his feet, he quickly moved over to the vision, intrigued by the unfamiliarity of the memory. 

He's heard this voice before. How was it familiar? Is this one of Krolia's memories, or is this one of the rare future visions...? 

As he got closer, the details grew more clear. Wherever he was, it was in a dense forest with leaves tinted an unearthly orange. A loud commotion was heard in the distance, a group of people yelling and bustling around, though they weren't visible through the leaves. 

A quiet rustling had his gaze snap over to the side and, reminding himself he this was not a tangible reality, moved closer. Moving the brush aside, it was revealed to be... a Blade with Kolivan? 

No, that wasn't Kolivan. The figure wearing the Blade leadership robes was significantly smaller than Kolivan, but they are taller and has a body type more typical for a Galra than Keith has. Maybe it was Krolia, but the belt strapped around their waist was all-too-familiar; it was his dad's work belt, the one he started to wear during his year in the desert, the belt that has always been a bit too big on him. 

His suspicions were confirmed when the significantly larger Blade lift up the figure, causing wisps of long black hair to fall out of the hood, face slightly hidden but still has undeniably human skin. 

Was this... him? 

Keith and Krolia have had future flashes before, albeit rarer than the typical flashes into the past, though Keith never usually... _saw_ himself in these rare future visions. What he saw was always from his own perspective. They assumed it just wasn't possible, but here he was, seeing his older self injured and collapsed on the ground with a very stressed Blade supporting him. 

It was very, very strange, and Keith's mind whirled with thousands of questions. Why was he in a Blade leader uniform? What is this planet? Why is his future self's hair so goddamn long? Where are the other paladins? Why was his future self so tall? How did his future self get injured? And _why was this Blade's voice so familiar?_

The large Blade pulled up a screen, rapidly tapping on the communication button. "Come on, Acxa, we're dying down here, get your head out of your nerd tech already..." 

The name was completely unfamiliar, but the face that popped up onto the screen wasn't. Keith's stomach dropped at the instant recognition of the face on the other end of the video feed. 

It's the Weblum Galra. 

If Keith had a thousand questions before, now they had risen up to a million. So the Weblum Galra's name is 'Acxa'... he'll have to remember that. She looked... different, from when they had fought, not too different to be unrecognizable, but her hair was much longer and something about her head ridges had changed. 

That was when it clicked. The voice of the Blade that was currently holding on tightly to future Keith was one of Lotor's Generals. 

Except neither of them looked to be Lotor's Generals anymore. Of course they weren't, they were both wearing armor for the Blade of Marmora, and no Empirical soldier would be this adamant about saving the life a Blade of Marmora leader. 

Did something happened to Lotor? He knew now that Lotor's Generals weren't going to stick with the Empire forever. A part of Keith's conscious that was usually tucked away grew excited at the thought of befriending other half Galrans like him, but he immediately shoved it away with the grounding reality that he has no idea how far into the future this is. 

"What's wrong? Did something happen?" Hearing the Webl- _Acxa's_ voice for the first time was strange. Though, it honestly sounded exactly how he imagined it would. 

"Uh... I kinda fucked up." 

Hearing the obscene Earth terminology from the large Galran made Keith sputter in surprise. A sigh was heard from the other end of the video feed. 

"Please don't tell me you angered the native species." 

"It was an accident! It's not like I knew some random generic stick was sacred!" 

" _Zethrid..._ " Another unfamiliar name that Keith made sure to remember. 

"It doesn't matter, I'll explain what happened later. What matters now is that our boss got hit on the head and he is _conked out_. We need an emergency pickup because a _certain someone_ said not to harm anyone, even in self-defense!" 

"I'll bring the ship down. Stay hidden as long as possible." The response was quipped, as if there were plenty of words Acxa left out that would be said later on. 

"Yes, ma'am." Zethrid drawled. As the video cut, the nearby commotion grew louder, causing Zethrid's masked face to move about frantically. 

Suddenly, a white explosion hit his face, and the forest was gone. 

.........

...

...

_"Keith?"_

_Where is this again? This feeling is always so disorienting._

_"Keith." Something was on his shoulder, was it..._

Keith struggled to open his eyes, face contorted in pain as he was still blinded by the brightness. When he was able to successfully open his eyes a partial distance, he saw Krolia next to him, whose protected white pupils made her less sensitive to the dramatic change. 

"Ugh... what was that?" He shifted his way up into a low crouch, having been knocked over from the pain of the bright light. Shaking his head, he mentally reviewed all that he had learned, still mildly perplexed at the whole idea of the Generals eventually becoming Blades. It was clear Krolia was, too. 

Keith and Krolia had fallen into a certain rhythm when it came to visions of the past. While they usually ended up talking about what they saw, they somehow maintained a good level of privacy despite how raw and revealing these visions were. They talked more about small, mundane things like how the Garrison functioned but often stayed quiet after the harrowing ones, the hard-to-talk-about ones that didn't need more explanation than what was shown. 

For future visions... they were so rare and fleeting, they were often met with silent confusion and contemplation. There was no use theorizing how it would happen- they were going to live it, eventually. 

This time, though, Keith couldn't keep his mouth shut. There were too many questions to be able to properly contain the overflow. "Is there more than one Blade of Marmora leader? With the uniform? I mean, I heard about the 'high order' when I was at the base, but I don't think I ever saw any of the other members besides Kolivan." 

Krolia blinked, a bit surprised at the uncharacteristic onslaught of words. Then, she surprised Keith in turn as she let out an amused chuckle, soft but there. 

"Yes, Kolivan is not the only one that wears the leadership uniform. Out of all the things we saw in that vision, you wearing that uniform was the least surprising to me." Krolia was looking down at him fondly, and he shifted his gaze away in mild discomfort. They've made massive leaps in their familial relationship in just these few weeks but that didn't exactly make Keith any more used to it. 

"Hm," was all Keith responded with. Krolia looked a bit disappointed at the abrupt end to the conversation, but it will still to early for him to feel any semblance of guilt about it. 

There wasn't any use in theorizing, anyway, though when he tried to fall asleep that day, his head was filled with foreign names and too many questions.


End file.
